Probation and other tools for preventing recidivist crime in the legislation of European countries

The article presents the results of a study on the array of legal tools for preventing recidivism in the criminal cycle legislation of continental European states. The emphasis of the scientific search is shifted towards identifying the features of legislative regulation within the specified jurisdictional boundaries of probation as a formally differentiated complex of post-criminal social adaptation measures for individuals who have conflicted with criminal law, applied when refraining from imposing or replacing imprisonment. The relevance of scientific research in this area is related to the fact that the experience of certain European countries in countering threats associated with the increased social danger of individuals, the deformation of socially approved attitudes, and repeated engagement in unlawful behavior finds approval in the scientific community and may be significant for the development of the Russian legal toolkit. The formulation of advanced foreign practices in the implementation of probation and other mechanisms against recidivism is seen as a potential solution to the challenges facing science, as well as a means of enriching domestic legislation and law enforcement. As a methodological basis for the study, dialectical methods of cognition, as well as a set of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, induction, abstraction), interdisciplinary (content analysis method), and specially legal (formal legal, comparative legal, historical legal, and interpretation of legal norms) methods have been defined. The conclusion of the scientific work consists of the author's findings that the criminal cycle legislation of European countries, in accordance with acts of regional cooperation, provides a broad range of criminal law “non-penitentiary” or “semi-penitentiary” responses, the application of which prevents the deformation of individual value orientations due to isolation from society, contributes to ensuring personal, public, and state security through the lens of neutralizing anti-social attitudes of individuals and creating conditions in which the offender is able to cope with their difficult life situation and not re-enter into conflict with the criminal law. The essence, features, and main parameters of the European experience of legislative consolidation and application of probation as a key tool for combating criminal recidivism are revealed. The results obtained contribute to expanding theoretical knowledge about the mechanisms for countering recidivism, including probation as a specific socio-legal phenomenon, and foreign approaches to the practice of their application.